Afterglow
by Jimperbam
Summary: After a particularly wild night with Thane, Shepard experiences some very disorienting and very colorful side effects. Perhaps she should have read that cross-species intercourse pamphlet a little better. Shrios.


So I'm Mass Effect trash now, and after a long night in Shrios hell, I abandoned my Shakarian castle for this. I was... _surprised_...to find out that interesting little drell feature. Bioware has fucked me up but they didn't drop the ball on this one. Also we should totally talk about my headcanon that Thane is very calm and patient and respectful in the streets and a _beast_ in the bed, hence the shredded undies.

Mass Effect (c) _fucking bioware_

* * *

She woke to EDI alerting her of their arrival to Sanctuary. Hackett had requested a raid on a Cerberus base to recover some Reaper tech, and Shepard was only too willing to use some of those white-suited assholes as target practice. She stumbled blearily out of bed and groped in a drawer for some undergarments; the ones from last night just so happened to be in shreds on the floor.

"Siha? You're up?"

Shepard smiled over her shoulder at the drell in her bed. Thane was covered from the waist by the white sheet; Shepard wanted to shake her head at the stupidly perfect scene. "Got a pit stop to make at Sanctuary. Want to come with me and Garrus?"

"Of course. I'll be ready to leave shortly."

"You could take your time," Shepard said softly as she admired the show of him rising to get dressed. Thane smiled slightly at her to show that he'd heard her.

The colors of the Normandy seemed overly bright as Shepard made her way down to the shuttle bay with her team. She wasn't worried, though - she assumed it was simply a product of sleep deprivation. She certainly hadn't slept much the previous night. What few hours of dreams she had were bizarre and swirling and undefined. But presently she had a mission to focus on. Perhaps she'd take a short nap if all went well.

"Are you feeling well, siha?"

Shepard hadn't noticed Thane sit beside her on the shuttle seat. She blinked rapidly and watched funny dots swirl at the edge of her vision. "Yeah, I - I'm okay."

"Are you sure? You seem distracted. Are you ill?"

"No, I - " Shepard instantly _was_ distracted as the walls of the shuttle wiggled like waves. "Well, it's nothing I can't handle."

"Siha." Thane looked at her sternly. "If you're not well, we can save this mission for another day."

"You worry too much." Shepard turned to him and was slightly unnerved when she noticed that Thane's normally green scales were now sporting several other colors. "I'll go see Mordin when we get back."

Thane let the topic go, though it was clearly not off his mind.

With the instructions from Hackett to acquire the Reaper tech and the nav point supplied by Cortez, Shepard led her team into the base. It seemed abandoned - the wide rooms were empty and the monitors unattented - but she knew better. Missions were never this easy. Indeed, after searching through a few rooms, she found the first obstacle. Killing him set off an alarm. Shepard had taken the shot, but she wasn't sure she'd killed him. It was possible that her newfound dizziness was affecting her aim. She tried to forget that the walls seemed to be made of jello instead of concrete and fought on.

It took only two more minutes for Shepard to realize that something was terribly wrong.

People moved and left a motion blur trail behind them. The blasts of biotics looked like rainbow comets of light. She couldn't hit a damned thing even if she and the target were a foot apart. A warm tingle had started in her fingertips, and she felt like she was running through water. She shook her head violently to clear it and headed for cover down a ramp, intending to medi-gel the problem away.

The ramp turned out not to be a ramp, but a flight of stairs. Shepard plunged headlong down the incline and could do nothing to slow herself. She reflected on the way down that the sharp corners of the stairs should probably have hurt more than they did. Shepard landed flat like a pancake at the bottom and was unable to shake it off immediately. Her limbs were too heavy, like they were all numb. She forced herself to roll over and sit up. Squeezing the trigger on a nearby enemy was a monumental effort. Only when she realized that there was an incredible rainbow pattern blooming on the swimming ceiling did she accept that she could not carry out the mission in this state.

"Thane!" she called weakly.

Despite the din of gunfire and the fact that he was upstairs, Thane heard her and was by her side immediately. "Siha, what is it? Are you hurt?" he asked urgently.

"No, not hurt - I don't think so - I - " Shepard squinted in fascinated horror as swirling vines grew from nowhere and waved in a nonexistent breeze. "D'you see that?"

"See what?"

"I don't know..." It was hard for Shepard to focus with the bizarre things she saw. They couldn't be real - no one would be fighting through sentient plants - but they looked real and moving and extremely colorful.

She was aware of Thane picking her up effortlessly and starting to run. "Garrus, Shepard is down. We're aborting this mission. Cover us," Thane said into his comm.

" _Down?!_ " Garrus' response was so loud that Shepard could hear it. " _What the hell do you - alright, back to the shuttle!_ "

Shepard was fully aware that the running should have been jarring, but instead she felt like she was floating. The gunfire had faded into white noise long ago. The part of her brain that wasn't completely taken in by the rainbow show that reality had become was terrified. Had there been some sort of human-specific nerve gas in the facility? That would be poor judgment on Cerberus' part - surely it would affect their workers - but maybe their helmets filtered it out? And since when were there three versions of Thane looking down in concern at her?

Shepard forced her mouth to form words to comfort Thane. She was at least nintety-five percent sure that she was not physically injured, so that was a plus. "Thane, I...I think I'm..."

"Do not speak. We're going back to the Normandy to get you help."

"I've got medi-gel," Garrus said, holding his omni-tool at the ready. "Where is it, Shepard?"

"That's what I'm saying...I'm not hurt...I am seeing some weird shit..."

"Something like this happened before," Garrus said to Thane. "She once came into contact with a Prothean artifact and had some sort of vision. Maybe something in that lab triggered it."

"What do you see, siha?" Thane asked clearly, moving a lock of hair off Shepard's forehead.

"Multicolored...varren..."

The second the shuttle landed in the Normandy's underbelly, Thane rushed Shepard to Mordin's lab, a concerned Garrus close behind.

"Shepard?" she heard Mordin say in surprise. She squinted through the fractals to see him. "Injured? How bad?"

Shepard put her laser focus to work; if anyone could figure out why the world was suddenly on drugs, it was Mordin. "Not injured. I'm seeing weird stuff," she said. "Colors and multiples of people and patterns and swirling things. It started this morning."

Mordin was off on the diagnosis train immediately. "Poison? No, would cause more damage than this. Fungal spores? Not likely - none known on Sanctuary; timeline off, regardless. Possible reaction to drugs - Shepard, seeing things only symptom?"

"No, I'm kind of numb...and sore..."

"Sore?"

"I _did_ fall down some stairs."

"Nonono, If numb now, then soreness first symptom. Location?"

"Er..." Shepard didn't exactly want to divulge that she and Thane had given the fish a very R-rated show. "Lower body, I guess. Is it relevant?"

"Everything relevant, could be - " Mordin suddenly stopped short. "Hallucinogen?"

Shepard was affronted. "I don't do drugs, Mordin!"

And Mordin giggled, actually giggled - it was a high-pitched and rushed sound, and absolutely contagious. At least, it would be in other less serious situations.

Thane was the opposite of amused. "Is something funny, Professor?" he asked dangerously.

Mordin caught the tone and stopped laughing, though his eyes were still alight with humor. "Apologies. Clarification: nothing wrong with Shepard."

"Nothing wrong?"

"Shepard not injured. _High_."

"Excuse me?" Shepard raised up and glared at one of the Mordins nearby. "How the hell could I be high? I just said I don't do drugs!"

"Did you perchance read pamphlet on cross-species intercourse I sent?"

Shepard turned red at the mention of the embarrassing but infinitely helpful guide Mordin had supplied when she and Thane had first decided to get serious. "Yes," she said defensively. "Well, I mean, I read the important parts!"

" _All_ of pamphlet important, Shepard!"

"Hang on," Garrus interrupted, "you're telling me Shepard is like this because she got _laid?_ "

"Precisely. Drell skin secretes substance hallucinogenic to humans when ingested. Not toxic, only inconvenient. Surprised at level of effect, though. Summary: congratulations on healthy relationship."

Shepard quite wished that someone would have shot her back on Sanctuary, or that she was never resurrected in the first place. Her cheeks were each suns; she felt like she would spontaneously combust with the embarrassment. Garrus seemed to be questioning his entire existence. Thane was merely very still.

"Siha," Thane said quietly and patiently, "you said you were aware of the possible side effects of our relationship."

"I was! I thought it would be more of - ugh, never mind what I thought - but they should really have something like _hey, your boyfriend's skin will make you trip balls_ in bigger print! I mean, it's never been this bad before. It must've been because of how much we - "

"Okay!" Garrus cut her off loudly. "Thanks for this extremely undesired fact that will make me view both of you differently. I am going to scrub my mind with the Normandy's thanix canon. Shepard, hope you stop hallucinating so one day in the far future I will be able to tease you about this." With that, Garrus made a quick exit.

Thane asked evenly, "How soon will it pass?"

"Soon," Mordin replied. "Shepard, best if you don't * _exacerbate_ * things while system clears."

"Thanks, Mordin. I'm never going to be able to look you in the face again, but thanks," Shepard sighed.

Mordin returned to whatever he was working on before the interruption, leaving Shepard and Thane alone. The technicolor stars and swirls were already starting to fade from Shepard's vision. She watched them lazily float away, avoiding Thane's gaze.

"You said you knew what you were getting into," Thane said gently. His tone had the barest edge of amusement to it.

"One time I don't read the fine print," Shepard huffed. "One damn time, and it ends with me _tripping balls_."

"I'm sorry, siha. Perhaps I should have warned you. In the future I won't assume that you read the fine print."

Shepard jumped off the examination table and nudged Thane playfully with her shoulder. "I'm aware that I'm never going to live this down."

"Perhaps you will." Thane took her hand as they exited the lab. "Mordin is restricted by patient confidentiality, and I get the feeling Garrus will never speak of this again. So unless you or I are feeling up to sharing..."

"No, no, I'm good." Shepard ran her free hand through her hair. The whirlwind of colors had retreated to the edge of her vision. "That was an, um, interesting experience. I'm sure after the embarrassment dies down, I'll come up with a whole book of terrible dirty puns about it, but for now..."

"For now?"

"For now I'll settle for a kiss."

Thane did not deny her; they kissed sweetly and shamelessly in the middle of the crew deck. Doing so made Shepard see more colors, but not because of any hallucination.

"Y'know, drugs like that - like you - can be addictive to humans," Shepard murmured, her eyes still closed.

"Whatever keeps you coming back."

"It's not the trip that I'm addicted to, Thane. It's you."

Thane hummed and looked down, his version of a blush. Shepard laughed and kissed him quickly again before heading to the elevator. "You're cordially invited to an encore performance in my room tonight," she called over her shoulder.

Thane exhaled slowly at the implications of the invitation. "Siha, I love you dearly, but you are a menace."

Shepard grinned. "Never claimed to otherwise."


End file.
